Obamacare attacked as unconstitutional invasion of privacy

President Obama

In my last column, "Under Obamacare, where will Canadians go for medical services?," I highlighted Gun Owners of America's (GOA's) opposition on privacy grounds to President Obama's obsession with nationalizing medical services in America.  Noting that mainstream privacy experts are also alarmed at the Obama administration's "damn the torpedoes" attitude to impose statist policy mandates at whatever the cost to privacy, I called for an unholy alliance of gun owners and privacy advocates to take action to stop Obamacare now before it becomes a social and economic entanglement that would literally sink America as a great power and eliminate significant chunks of Americans' remaining privacy and freedom.

And now some constitutional scholars agree.  Writing in the Wall Street Journal, legal experts David Rivkin and Lee Casey question the constitutionality of Obamacare in their commentary entitled "Is Government Health Care Constitutional?: The right to privacy conflicts with rationing and regulation."   

Citing to the line of constitutional privacy cases that led up to the Supreme Court's striking down of government bans on use of contraception and abortion services, Rivkin and Casey argue that even under Obama's so called "public option," Obama's plan turns into what amounts to a single-payer system [and] the constitutional issues regarding treatment and reimbursement decisions will be manifold," and spark litigation with a substantial likelihood of success due to the program's inherent "undue burdens" on Americans' privacy rights.  In other words, Obamacare will legally blow up when everybody realizes that by making the government our brother's first payer it requires government to be our brother's first keeper as well.

Oh, and what's a good analogy to Obama's "public option"?  How about that failed federal home lending enterprise called Fannie Mae that arguably led us over the cliff into the housing crisis?  See The Dangers of Fannie Mae Health Care. 

If influencing Congress was as simple as writing a paper on Obamacare for economics 101 in college, we all could just write a short note to our federal Representatives and Senators objecting to Obamacare as a doubling down on the inefficiency and other problems caused by the Congress during World War II when it excluded employer paid insurance premiums from taxation as a loophole around President Roosevelt's war time wage and price controls.  You would likely write that - even if the Congress wants to force some Americans' to subsidize other Americans' health care costs and often very poor life decisions to smoke, drink too much, or over-eat and avoid exercise - that there's a better way to do it, i.e., phase out that World War II era federal tax break for employers to pay for one size fits all insurance policies, and phase in below the line tax deductions for individuals who pay their own medical insurance premiums and costs.

But that's not how Congress works in the real world which is explained more by public choice theory than what we learned in that romantic high school civics class - citizens must TAKE ACTION in simple and direct ways to influence Congress.  So if you have not yet used GOA's action link to let your Congressional delegation know that Obamacare is not acceptable, do so now here.

And then hit 'em again using this interesting approach by DownSizeDC.org here.  Do it now. There will be no turning back if Obamacare is enacted.